![\"ICE](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/U-1.S._Immigration_and_Customs_Enforcement_ICE_Enforcement_and_Removal_Operations_ERO_officers_in_We.jpeg\")
ICE conduct an arrest at workplace enforcement. Credit: Wikimedia Commons \/ usicegov<\/p>\nICE conduct an arrest at workplace enforcement. Credit: Wikimedia Commons \/ usicegov<\/p>\n
This article was originally published by the\u00a0Texas Observer<\/a>, a nonprofit investigative news outlet and magazine. Sign up for their\u00a0weekly newsletter<\/a>, or follow them on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0X<\/a>, and\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>.<\/p>\n Moizali Momin spent the final months of 2025 bouncing around immigrant detention centers in Texas, Louisiana, and Arizona.<\/p>\n Like tens of thousands of others who were spared deportation under former President Barack Obama, Momin, who came to the United States illegally 26 years ago and settled in the Houston area, where he has a U.S. citizen wife and two teenage children, was vacuumed up by the unprecedented immigration enforcement program of President Donald Trump\u2019s second administration.<\/p>\n Momin was released two days before Christmas, about a month after a federal judge in California ruled against a Trump administration policy that mandates detention for anyone who entered the country illegally, regardless of when and irrespective of their ties to the community or whether, as with Momin, they\u2019re in the process of obtaining legal status.<\/p>\n \u201cI was saying to God, \u2018Thank you so much,\u2019\u201d Momin, who\u2019s originally from India, said in a January interview. \u201cI was so happy, you can\u2019t believe that. When I came outside, saw the sun and everything. \u2026 I called my friend, my wife and my son. They are so happy.\u201d<\/p>\n But Momin wondered why he, a longtime resident with citizen family members who, unlike many people caught up in Trump\u2019s deportation program, has a shot at legal status, was detained for months and bused and flown thousands of miles around the country, all at taxpayer expense. \u201cWhat is the benefit?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n Immigration attorneys say that the cramped, unsanitary detention conditions Momin described \u2014 he\u2019s Ismaili, a branch of Islam, and said he wasn\u2019t given food that met his religious diet restrictions \u2014 are their own sort of punishment.<\/p>\n \u201cDetention is the easiest way to deport people,\u201d\u00a0 said John Gihon, a former attorney for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) who now represents immigrants in deportation proceedings. \u201cPeople who would stay in the country and fight their case on the non-detained docket \u2026 [decide] \u2018I don\u2019t want to sit in custody at all, I just want to go back to my country.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Momin entered the country illegally from Canada in 1999. He was quickly arrested at a hotel by immigration officers, issued a notice to appear in immigration court, then driven to a bus station and released. Momin says he didn\u2019t speak English and didn\u2019t understand he was in deportation proceedings. He made his way to Texas, joining an Ismai\u2019ili community near Houston. Unbeknownst to him, Momin said, an immigration judge ordered his deportation in 2000. In the ensuing years, Momin met the woman he\u2019d eventually marry, and they had two children.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t until 2015, according to records in a lawsuit Momin\u2019s immigration attorney filed last year seeking his release, that Momin learned about the removal order. Momin, by then the manager of a lighting store, went to an air cargo terminal to pick up merchandise for his employer. When he gave his name to the customs officials, they took him into custody.<\/p>\n At the time the Obama administration had instructed ICE to focus on deporting threats to public safety and to national security. Relying on the doctrine of prosecutorial discretion, a longstanding legal principle that says the government isn\u2019t required to enforce every single law against every single person, longtime residents who were deemed to have strong ties to their communities, even if they were undocumented, were considered low-priority for deportation. Momin was released and put under an order of supervision, a tool immigration officials had used for decades. Such orders were used when someone\u2019s home country wouldn\u2019t accept them after they were ordered deported, or for humanitarian reasons: Someone with a removal order who was caring for a sick U.S. citizen family member might be placed under supervision, for instance, rather than be deported. This increased under Obama\u2019s prosecutorial discretion program, immigration attorneys say.<\/p>\n Momin continued checking in with ICE for the next decade. In 2018, his wife began the process of sponsoring him for a green card; one of the few avenues for people who are undocumented to get legal status is through a U.S. citizen spouse. Many immigrants in similar situations have to return to their home countries as part of this process\u2014a problem Biden tried to address with a 2024 executive order that was blocked by the courts. But Momin\u2019s lawyer said he is exempt from this requirement because his case is so old that it falls under a grandfather clause in the immigration laws.<\/p>\n That legal process was still pending when, early on the morning of August 5, Momin drove from his cul-de-sac-filled subdivision outside Houston to the squat, 1970s concrete office building in northern Houston that houses ICE\u2019s field office. When officers told him he was being detained and would be deported, \u201cI was completely shocked,\u201d Momin said. His first thought was that he was unprepared. He had no money on him or change of clothes. Then he thought of his family. Momin\u2019s wife has suffered from a series of illnesses, including an autoimmune disease, Hodgkin lymphoma, and, most recently, a respiratory disease, according to medical records included in the lawsuit. He wondered who would take care of her, who would pay for his son\u2019s college tuition, and who would take his 15-year-old daughter to basketball practice.<\/p>\n Momin said he was held for three or four hours at the ICE office, then driven to the Montgomery Processing Center in the Houston suburb of Conroe. He was taken to an intake facility, which he described as a sort of holding cell with a glass wall through which the private detention facility\u2019s employees could supervise immigrants.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThat facility is, like, terrible, horrible,\u201d Momin said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people in there. A lot. Each room has like 45 capacity. And they\u2019re putting like 60 people in each room. The restroom is a mess. Dirty. People are sleeping on the floor, people are sleeping in the restroom.\u201d<\/p>\n After at least two days\u2014Momin said he couldn\u2019t remember exactly how long he was in intake\u2014he moved to the large, barracks-like rooms with rows of cots for long-term detention.\u00a0<\/p>\n In September, Momin\u2019s attorney filed a writ of habeas corpus, a civil proceeding before a federal district judge, demanding Momin\u2019s release, arguing ICE never conducted a legally required \u201cindividualized review\u201d of his detention and didn\u2019t give him \u201can opportunity to prepare for an orderly departure.\u201d The next day, Momin\u2019s phone account at the detention center in Conroe was canceled, according to court filings. It wasn\u2019t until he called his family several days later, using another detainee\u2019s phone privileges, that they learned ICE had transferred him to a detention center in Arizona, where he was scheduled to be put on a plane and deported back to India.\u00a0<\/p>\n In an interview, Momin said that he had been rousted from bed in Conroe at 5 a.m. and driven, shackled hand and foot, to another facility in Houston, then to Louisiana, where he sat on the bus for another four hours before he was loaded on a plane and flown to Arizona. (In court, Justice Department lawyers said the timing of Momin\u2019s flight to Arizona was based on when the Indian consulate issued travel documents ICE needed.) After three or four days at a detention center, in the same clothes, without a shower, Momin said, he was told he\u2019d be deported. The following afternoon he was bused to an airport.<\/p>\n Back in Texas, Simon Azar-Farr, Momin\u2019s San Antonio-based immigration attorney, was frantically trying to prevent the deportation. The same day Momin was taken to the airport, a federal judge in Houston signed a temporary restraining order preventing ICE from removing him.<\/p>\n Momin said he was returned to the Arizona detention center, spent another couple of hours in intake, which he said didn\u2019t have the same overcrowding issues as the detention center in Conroe, before being allowed to sleep on a cot and finally getting a shower. Some time late the next night or early the following morning, he was taken to another room where he waited around 10 hours, shackled again, then was flown back to Texas. Back in Conroe, Momin said, he went through the same overcrowded intake facility.<\/p>\n Momin stayed in Conroe until early October, when he was yet again shackled, loaded on a bus, and driven to a detention center in Livingston, Louisiana, where more detainees boarded. The bus continued to an airfield, where Momin said he assumed he\u2019d be deported to India. He contemplated being dropped in the country he hadn\u2019t seen for 26 years, one that\u2019s plagued by persecution of Muslims.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the second time this is happening,\u201d Momin said in an interview. \u201cI was crying, because nothing is ready. I don\u2019t have the money. I have [dirty] clothes with me. \u2026 How can my family see this person coming back after 26 years? How are my parents going to feel?\u201d<\/p>\n One by one, people on the bus were called by name to be led off and board the Boeing 737 Momin could see parked on the tarmac. \u201cLucky me, they said \u2018The plane is full, we\u2019re taking you back to Livingston,\u2019\u201d Momin said.<\/p>\n In the meantime, Azar-Farr had asked an immigration judge in New York to reopen Momin\u2019s removal proceedings. She did, then stayed his removal. Eventually, she rescinded the old removal order, finding that deporting Momin would be a hardship to his family and taking into account that he had the opportunity to legalize his status.\u00a0<\/p>\n Momin was no longer at risk of imminent deportation, but the removal proceedings against him were still open. Under past presidents, including the first Trump administration, Momin would have been given the opportunity to ask ICE to review his case and decide whether he was eligible for bond. If the agency refused, he could ask an immigration judge. But in July, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had implemented the Trump policy that immigrants who\u2019d entered the country illegally could no longer receive bond. In September, the Board of Immigration Appeals, a division of the executive branch that oversees immigration courts, agreed that immigration judges don\u2019t have authority to set bond for people who entered the country illegally. So Momin was kept at the facility in Conroe until late December\u2014after that federal judge in California ruled against the bond restriction\u2014when Momin paid $5,000 and finally returned to his family. (Late last week, a 5th Circuit appeals court panel<\/a> diverged from the California judge, finding in favor of the Trump administration\u2019s bond policy, casting doubt on how cases like Momin\u2019s in Texas will now play out.)\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n In a statement, ICE spokesperson Timothy Oberle defended Momin\u2019s arrest, saying that the latter\u2019s petition for a green card could not have been processed until after his removal order was rescinded in October. \u201cICE transferred Momin on several occasions to a staging area in an attempt to carry out his removal, however, each time various last-second filings by his attorney delayed his removal,\u201d Oberle wrote in an email.<\/p>\n Oberle said that Momin had not requested a religious diet while in detention in Conroe, adding that the center had not exceeded its capacity while Momin was detained nor had detainees slept in the restroom. \u201cFurthermore, the Montgomery Processing Center is one of the most well-equipped detention facilities in the world providing detainees with a safe, secure and humane living environment and a quality of life that far exceeds industry standards,\u201d the spokesperson wrote.<\/p>\n Momin\u2019s case illustrates the reality that the Trump administration is not focusing its detention and prosecution resources on the so-called worst of the worst, even as ICE detention swells to record-breaking levels. Some in the administration were never shy about this: Tom Homan, a former high-ranking ICE official and currently Trump\u2019s border czar, said at 2024\u2019s National Conservatism conference: \u201cNo one\u2019s off the table. If you\u2019re here illegally, you better be looking over your shoulder.\u201d<\/p>\n That philosophy has manifested itself in the second Trump administration\u2019s willingness to disrupt the lives of everyday Americans to carry out its immigration agenda. In blue states, thousands of federal agents have descended on major metropolitan areas to carry out deadly street sweeps. In Texas, people like Momin, who were considered by past administrations to be too important to their families and too unthreatening to the nation to be deported, are now low hanging-fruit even if they have Congress-created pathways to legalization.<\/p>\n \u201cThose people should be given every opportunity to seek the relief they\u2019re eligible for,\u201d Gihon said. \u201cWhy are we creating rules or laws, then not giving people the opportunity to use them?\u201d<\/p>\n Though he\u2019s Ismai\u2019ili, Momin\u2019s family celebrates a traditional American Christmas, putting up an artificial tree and lights. After his release, instead of a large gathering with extended family, he and his wife and children exchanged gifts among themselves. Though he\u2019s in the process of getting his legal status, Momin said he lays awake at night sometimes, worrying. He\u2019s afraid that if he\u2019s forced to return to India, his wife, who\u2019s Pakistani, won\u2019t be able to join him.<\/p>\n \u201cNow he\u2019s out, and his case just goes on until he is able to obtain his permanent residency,\u201d Azar-Farr said. \u201cSo a serious person should ask, I think, \u2018What exactly was the benefit of all that detention?\u2019 If he\u2019s got a case and he\u2019s pursuing it, what was the point of putting him in jail for 5-and-a-half months?\u201d<\/p>\n Sign Up for SA Current newsletters.<\/a><\/p>\n Follow us:\u00a0Apple News<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Google News<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0NewsBreak<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Reddit<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Instagram<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Facebook\u00a0<\/a>| Twitter<\/a>\u00a0| Or sign up for our\u00a0RSS Feed<\/a><\/p>\n Related Stories<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\tThe case of one Houston man, nearly deported to India after a quarter-century here, shows what happens when prosecutorial discretion is abandoned.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/shutterstock_2718204069-scaled.jpg\")
Anti-ICE demonstration in Minneapolis in December (Shutterstock) Credit: Jaime Monzon<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"How](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770769088_556_U-1.S._Immigration_and_Customs_Enforcement_ICE_Enforcement_and_Removal_Operations_ERO_officers_in_We.jpeg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n
![\"When](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770769088_966_Copyright-Lawrey-.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n![\"San](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770769088_76_jalen_mckee-rodriguez1200x1000.webp.jpeg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n